“So what does Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer do when he faces a room of press and financial analysts toting a bunch of Macs? He counts Apple logos,” Larry Dignan reports for ZDNet. “During his talk about search, netbooks, Windows 7 and the business climate, Ballmer took a detour into Apple-ville and how Microsoft tracks share versus Apple.”
Excerpts from Steve Ballmer’s speech:
We have low share, by the way, in the investor audience. I can see the Apple logos versus the PC logos. So we have more work to do, more work to do. Our share is lower in this audience than the average audience. Don’t hide it. I’ve already counted them. I have been doing that since we started talking.
Anyway, we got a bank them right here in the middle. I know where they all are. One over here on the side. But anyway… that’s okay, feel free as long as you are using Office to go right on ahead.
The primary attack that comes from Apple is, hey, at the end of the day, we have the coolest hardware. When you see the hardware, the PC design that is am come out this Christmas with Windows 7, I think that conventional wisdom can begin to really change. There is some really amazing, amazing work. So it is possible to get great hardware innovation, even when hardware and software comes from separate companies.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
By SteveJack
This, of course, is exactly what Ballmer wants his investors and his customers to think. Concentrate only on the hardware, not on the OS, which, BTW, is what Microsoft makes; not PC hardware. This is one of Microsoft’s weakest attempts to freeze the market in recent memory. Does he really think we’ll believe that Dell et al. are building factories to mill ultra-thin, precision unibody laptops out of solid aluminum like Apple? Puleeze. Not with their margins (or lack thereof). And, besides, no matter what they produce, they’ll still have crappy Windows and tons of other assorted crapware pre-installed. And, stickers; don’t forget the stickers.
So, why, some may ask, doesn’t Ballmer just say, “Hey, Apple makes cool, quality hardware, so run Windows on it!”
The reason he doesn’t say such a thing, especially in a room full of press and financial analysts, is because he knows that it’s death. If people did that, buy “cool” Macs to run Windows, then they’d also get to dabble in Mac OS X. In Microsoft’s land of mediocrity and worse, this is A Very Bad Thing™. The Very Worst Thing Of All™, in fact.
Obviously, as many of you know firsthand, Windows-only sufferers who are confronted with Mac OS X routinely and quite joyously end up dumping Windows. In fact, the Windows-to-Mac switchers end up being some of Apple’s very best salespeople. Ballmer knows all this, of course, but he can’t say it, so instead he pretends that this whole Apple Mac thing is only about “cool” hardware, as if Monkey Boy were actually capable of discerning cool. Ballmer’s spiel only works on those who’ve never really tried a Mac; the rest of us just laugh.
This is how Microsoft makes their money, it’s really the only way they’ve ever made their money, on the backs of the ignorant. Ignorance is the key to Microsoft’s success. Just look at their commercials in which Microsoft peddles cheap, junky, thick, heavy, and uncool (one of the actors even says she’s not cool enough for a Mac) laptops that they don’t even make. Microsoft ignores the OS – the actual part of the “PC” that they make – altogether. Microsoft avoids the Windows vs. Mac operating system comparison for one simple reason: They cannot compete. So, sticker price is all they have left. Ballmer, like the rest of us, knows that if you give people both Windows and Mac OSes to use, they overwhelmingly choose Mac. That’s why in a room full of people in-the-know, he’s facing a room full of Macs with glowing Apple logos.
This situation, of course, is why Microsoft will ultimately lose and Apple will win. In a head-to-head matchup of Windows vs. Mac, it’s no contest. Microsoft’s only remaining technique it to try to keep as many sheep as possible in the dark. Microsoft’s last refuge is to pretend that the people who buy Macs are somehow glamoured by a glowing Apple logo and not making a sensible choice, “paying $500 for a logo,” etc. Basing your business on a lie guarantees failure. Unfortunately for Microsoft, there are too many Apple retail stores, too many satisfied customers who talk way too much about their satisfaction, and far too many roomfuls of Mac-toting financial analysts and members of the press.
Oh, BTW, not content to merely fleece the ignorant sheep, Ballmer also promised to rape them, too:
Gavin Clarke reports for The Register, “Ballmer said Microsoft had got it wrong by selling low-priced Windows – Windows XP – on netbooks. These run Windows XP and account for 11 per cent of Microsoft’s PC business, but Microsoft’s tactic of using low price to win market share against Linux has hurt its revenue.”
“With Windows 7, Ballmer vowed prices would go up, and Microsoft had a ‘great chance’ to up-sell customers,” Clarke reports. “It sounded like the upsell will come from Windows XP on netbooks to Windows 7 on netbooks and from Windows 7 on netbooks to Windows Home Premium on ultra-thin machines. ‘In Windows 7, we are going re-adjust those prices north,’ Ballmer told analysts looking for the bottom line and dismayed by the impact of netbook sales on Microsoft’s business.”
Full article here.
SteveJack is a long-time Macintosh user, web designer, multimedia producer and a regular contributor to the MacDailyNews Opinion section.
More vapor from the big blowhole.
So, Microsoft is now making PC hardware?
Frigtard.
I can almost feel his sphincter tightning up like a hydraulic vice on overload!!! Haha I wish someone caught his reaction with all those Macs on video.
More stench from Microsoft’s head Ballsack.
Doesn’t that moron say the same thing every year? Typical Microsoft MO, promise something better just around the corner but never deliver it.
Damn, is this verbatim the way he speaks, I feel a headache coming on after reading just the excerpts, don’t feel brave enough to slog though the complete article. He could take public speaking lessons from rain man
I’m not msft fan. Ballmer should be fired.
A lot of us switchers were morons , I really wanted a Mac, but did not get one until Intel and Boot Camp, so I could still use windows for the “important things”
After 6 months, I realized, I had not booted into XP in 3 months! when I did a clean install for leopard, I did not re install windows
That was 3 years ago, and 4 additional Macs for the family
Long may Ballmer continue to run Microsoft into the ground. Man, I love it whenever he comments on anything. Pure gold.
Where’s ZuneTang? Conspicuously quiet today!
The PC world has a history of occasionally coming out with either “fantasy” pc’s that appear really cool, and different from what Apple has, but never make it into production. They also will come out with pc’s that attempt to have similar styling to existing Apple models, and “surprise”, they wind up costing the same or more than the Apple model they are copying from.
The only ‘new’ thing the pc world has come up with recently is the netbook (not really new, but everybody’s jumped in with both feet, except for Apple), and just now they are finding out that hey, between the cost of miniature components and the Windows XP license, there isn’t much money to make on them, and it’s cut into sales of ‘real’ computers, where they actually make a little money.
‘he Windows-to-Mac switchers end up being some of Apple’s very best salespeople. Ballmer knows all this, of course, but he can’t say it’
You know that is how he thinks, or are words just being put in Ballmer’s mouth again?
He is repeating the message behind their new add program. “The Apple hardware is pricey and cool – but you don’t have to have a cool expensive computer to have a good computer”. By concentrating on the hardware, he takes your mind of the important stuff – the OS and software.
Sadly, there are still some PC programs I must use (to program specific audio processors)! I don’t have a choice. The stupid engineers seem to think there is only one type of “pro” OS. 🙁
Ballmer will lead MS down the drain, and he seems to be accelerating.
I’ve been suspecting this since MS first announced their “Me Too” stores that are to be built next to Apple’s stores. Balmer’s statements seem to suggest this now: Microsoft will be selling Microsoft-branded PCs and laptops with the launch of their stores. iCal me on this.
The guy was always deluded, more recently he has been seen to be panicking but now it seems to be increasingly paranoid too, incapable it seems of even expressing a couple words that actually make any sense. Can’t tell whether he reminds me more of Caligula or Nero but one thing’s for sure, the guy’s clearly breaking up before our very eyes, ain’t life good.
Microsoft: Hard where you kneed ’em, software you don’t.
As mentioned by SteveJack – it is the software. I switched to Macs in 2004. I stick with the Macintosh because of Mac OS X and that is it. Yes, the hardware is nice, but I could care less. Apple assembles its hardware with the same pieces (mostly) that PC manufacturers use. Yes, you can buy cheap PC hardware but you get what you pay for in that. For me, it is not about the design of the Mac it’s about the OS running on it because at the end of the day, I am staring at the screen all day interacting with applications on Mac OS X. I am done with Windows System Registry. I am done with every possible virus and other malware coursing through the veins of the Internet waiting for too many opportunities to get infected. I am done with the time wasting installation routines and uninstallation routings for applications in Windows. I am done with Microsoft bloatware.
This November marks my 5th anniversary free of Microsoft Windows. Yay!!!!
Here’s my switching to a Mac story:
Being a graphic designer I was one of the few who used Windows and took offense when print houses could not / would not accept my design files. I thought that Mac users were snobs, an elitist group that were clinging to a dying platform. As crazy as it now seems, I remember wishing that the Mac OS would just die off (Sorry!) so compatibility problems would be a thing of the past. (Did I just admit that on a Mac blog?!) Well thank God that never happened. I had looked into Mac’s obviously but, just like other price shoppers, compared specs and I always ended up going with Windows on price alone.
I’m definitely in the power user category and work on Photoshop files in the 600 MB range and video editing 60 minute TV shows so I’ve always needed the most ram and fastest processor that I could possible afford.
One day ) had a lightning strike that hit my design studio and it damaged $15,000 worth of equipment including my computer, a $6000 Epson printer etc. The insurance company wrote me a check for the damages and now it was time to go shopping.
I went to the Dell website (Ahh!) and built the baddest system that they had. It totaled about $12,000. I then went over to Apple and repeated the same steps. Surprise. We’re talking better specs for $10,500. This was about 4 years ago but the specs at the time were: Two 3.2 GHZ proessors, 8 GB Ram, Two 30 inch Displays, upgraded everything that was possible. ( I think you could get this same system, or better, for around $6000 now.
I then called Adobe and they said I could cross grade the software for free – just pay for shipping. Wow, I thought! Am I really going to do this? What about my other software I wondered?
That same week Steve Jobs announced that they were switching to Intel processors and one could now run Windows on a Mac! Done deal! Decision made!
One week later the Mac arrived and my initial reaction was to the packaging. Everything was so meticulously packaged and presented and I guess design guys notice things like that. I started it up – loaded all my software – wondered what the hell did I just do after I dragged an icon off the dock and watched it go poof.
Then – – – I started to wonder if I really need to load boot camp and Windows after all. I did end up loading it. And never, ever used it. I drank the Apple koolaid by the pitcher and gulped it all down – every last drop.
I found myself browsing Mac blogs (MDN) and it all seemed to be more of a community – and us against them mentality that permeated the Mac community. And now I understood why. After all these years I finally realized that it wasn’t all hype. The Mac was a vastly better machine and the software was such an improvement that I couldn’t even believe it.
Gone were the days of constantly rebooting to get the computer to run at a decent speed. Locating drivers and worrying about viruses were a thing of the past.
S0 – 4 years later – where am I now.
We’re a 4 iPhone family, one iPod Touch. I’ve bought iMacs for my wife, son and mother. My son’s girlfriend bought an iPhone because she loved his so much – and now she’s buying a Macbook for college only because she loved the iPhone so much ….
I could go on and on – it’s a cycle thats repeating all across America as more people are introduced to the Apple brand. I may have been late to the party – but I’m doing my best to drink my fill.
Hahahah. And I was just reading “Microsoft’s Yellow Road to Cairo” on RDM. Talk about eerily appropriate.
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Q4.06/4E2A8848-5738-45B1-A659-AD7473899D7D.html
And so Ballmer is making a vaporous promise that people should suspend their thoughts of buying a Mac in the near future because SUPER KEWL PC hardware is due to arrive this Christmas with the launch of Windows 7.
So what you want about the man, but at least respects tradition.
@Jubei
“I can almost feel his sphincter tightning up”
Eeew! That’s gross!
In my experience it is true that many of the people who attempt to make the switch from PC’s to Macs end up becoming staunch Mac supporters. I won’t say all – some people make a legitimate effort and just don’t settle into MacOS X for some reason. Others never really give it a fair shot and go running back to Windows, but that is their loss.
The absolute best way to get a Windows user to switch is to make a Mac available to them for a reasonable period of time to give them a chance to experiment without the pressure of having just dropped $1300 or whatever on a new and completely unfamiliar computing experiment. That may be one reason why the Apple Stores are working so well. They give people a chance to dabble in Macs without having to make a big financial commitment. They also immerse these people in a friendly environment that encourages them to explore the computer as a helpful tool, and not just the word processing or spreadsheet juggling box on your desk at work.
M$ is really reaching the bottom when Ballmer says “…feel free [to use a Mac] as long as you are using Office….” M$ has only a few cash cows – Windows, Office, and corporate services/licensing like MS Exchange. Those revenue streams are vulnerable and M$ has limited control in terms of the PC hardware on which they are hosted. So far the PC vendors like Dell, HP, etc. have let them down, just as M$ has let the vendors and public down.
Oh, please. Balmer must think everyone else is as stupid as he is, apparently. I’d rather use Mac OS X on an old scratched up PowerBook G4 than Windows on ANY brand new PC laptop.
If he actually believes Windows market share is suffering because PC makers cannot make cool hardware, he is both stupid and deluded. It’s obvious that Windows market share is suffering for one reason, Windows (and maybe Microsoft’s cheap-is-better-than-cool marketing strategy).
Good lord, what happened there?
*Say what you want about the man, but at least he respects tradition.
A couple of corrections – poor proof-reading…
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The absolute best way to get a Windows user to switch is to make a Mac available to them for a reasonable period of time to give them a chance to experiment without the pressure of having just dropped $1300 or whatever on a new and completely unfamiliar computing *experience*. That may be one reason why the Apple Stores are working so well. They give people a chance to dabble in Macs without having to make a big financial commitment. They also immerse these people in a friendly environment that encourages them to explore the computer as a helpful *and fun* tool, and not just the word processing or spreadsheet juggling box on your desk at work.
Didn’t Ballmer gave the same statement when Vista was about to be released. from what i remember he said look for the hardware that will come along with Vista. nothing really changed after Vista was released.
MSFT’s DNA is to copy others.
You know sooner or later Ballmer will start contract manufacturing PCs too to counter Mac sales and growing number of non-Windows netbooks, just like they had to make Zune. They had to make XBox. And when the MacTouch comes out they will scramble to marry Windows 7 with the Big Ass Table.
There will always be people who really don’t want to change anything. They somehow convince themselves, or others convince them, to switch to the Mac, but the unspoken expectation is that everything will work exactly the way it did in Windows. This, of course, is impossible; so these people eventually go back to Windows. For most switchers, however, there’s no looking back. I, too, was a switcher once. I bought my first pc in 1978, six years before the first Mac appeared on the scene. Hardly a day went by that I didn’t want to throw that stupid pc out the window. The day I laid eyes on my first Mac, I knew my days of endless frustration were over. And they were.
iPhoner: your experience is so like mine. Switched 6 years ago. Now my family has gone all Macs and I’ve got one at work: four high end laptops, one G5 tower, one macpro, two iPhones, two mac minis and two iMacs. Now my mother-in-law has an iMac, my brother-in-law bought an iMac and even my nephew, an accountant got a macbook pro after buying his first iPhone a year ago (going to the dark side, as he put it at first). It just keeps growing. We don’t need to drink anything. Just experience it first hand. The rest is history.
What it simply comes down to is would you by an OS from a visionary who has cut his teeth in 3 different companies and learned tons from his failures or from a salesman that won’t acknowledge that he has already failed and is still trying to market his way out of a sink hole? Painting a sickly elephant in black and white stripes does not make it a healthy zebra. I think even PT Barnum would not have tried that one.
S’funny – I wonder what he meant by “When you see the hardware, the PC design that is am come out this Christmas with Windows 7, I think that conventional wisdom can begin to really change.”
What conventional wisdom? That Macs are better than PCs?
Shirley (from a Ballmer point of view anyway) it should be that conventional wisdom dictates that PCs are better than Macs!
Freudian slip?!? I think he knows Microsoft’s screwed
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ROTFLMAO! Ballmer’s a douche!
First, anybody can come up with something cool. Cool and functional, that’s the hard part. Apple does this very well.
As dave points out, above, when PC companies come up with something cool and functional, they end up having to charge more for it. And they end up competing against themselves. I can buy this Dell 1/2-inch thick aluminum unibody laptop for $2000, or I can buy this Dell 1-inch plastic laptop for $750. Most people will choose the $750. Believe it or not, style doesn’t sell all that well.
One of the things about Apple is that, as Mac users, we get great looking devices for free because Apple doesn’t compete against itself. You don’t have a “luxury” line of Macs and an “economy” line of Macs. Because of this, Apple can enjoy better economies-of-scale producing “luxury” Macs.
As an example, consider an iMac. It’s a great looking all-in-one desktop personal computer. Let’s say the pretty enclosure for the iMac costs $100. Suppose Apple yanked the motherboard out of the iMac and stuck it in a cheap-ass $10 PC case (and unhooked the monitor). They could sell cheapMacs for less than $500 and it would probably outsell the pretty all-in-one iMacs. Because they wouldn’t be selling as many iMacs, the cost of those pretty enclosures would probably go up, accentuating the rift between the “luxury” iMacs and the “inexpensive” cheapMacs.
So by having just the one line, Apple makes good looking machines that are economical.
@iphoner
It’s not about Mac snobbery. It’s about a sense of right and wrong. Mac users have a feeling of frustration that time and again, Apple has added creative feature after feature through talent and hard work to make our user experience better, and Microsoft eventually either takes credit or gloats about it when they copy it two years later. That frustration was deeper years back when Apple was on the brink of collapse. Now with Apple in fine form, it just seems terribly unfair, similar to plagiarism where the loser kid keeps on boasting for work he copied off the creative kid. The list of Apple firsts later copied by MS is really endless.
With Balmers attitude I will be amazed if Microsoft is around in 20 years.
Lets face it, Apple is destroying them in the hardware and software game, Google have launched their own OS and web apps that are a million times better than office, Nintendo is owning the Xbox in unit sales across the globe (xbox will never make any money for Microsoft anyway as it cost over $100 million to develop and Market).
Micosoft has made it’s first major losses in 20 years and is cutting back. Things are VERY bad for them and it’s only going to get harder for them to compete.
The most effective marketing bucks spent on Apple’s behalf might just be Balmer’s salary and benefits.
Long live Balmer!
With all the news to come out of Redmond over the past weeks, one has to wonder how this moron still has a job. The comments he made are delusional at best, and given the fact he stood there counting Apple logos and talking sh*t about how W7 is the coolest thing on Earth tells all of us this guy is frightened for his company. He should be.
It is a forgone conclusion the Windows 7 is too little, too late. If more than half of the business community is still sticking with XP, he’s already lost the enterprise market on the OS side. It won’t be long after that when he starts losing SQL Server, Dynamics, and other apps to competing providers like Oracle and IBM – both of which are supposedly writing enterprise apps for our favorite company.
Microsoft has proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to be the masters at copying the technologies of others (i.e. Apple). It’s like the old saying – you can fool some people all of the time and you can fool all people some of the time. The bottom line is Apple continued to innovate to a point where MS could not keep up, so their stolen ideas from Apple could never be xeroxed. Every version of Windows was a rip-off of the Apple OS, and when Apple came back to prominence in the 90s MS laughed it off. Subsequently you had Windows ME, Vista, and the upcoming 7 (which looks like a copy of Vista, actually) – all of which were or will be flops. Beyond that, the Zune is dead, the Big Ass Table is laughable, and now this phony retail initiative. How uncool.
Ballmer was and is nothing but a big, fat sales and marketing guy that just can’t keep up with Apple, and if he doesn’t know that, he’s a complete moron. He should be looking at his employment agreement for how much they’ll pay him when he’s tossed out the door, and if I were him, I’d start dumping those shares quickly.
All of this is just music to my ears.
fm
@ bezoar … “Long live Balmer!”
Agreed. It’s just like us Bronco fans in Colorado.
Long Live Al Davis!!
As long as you’ve got inept leaders at the helm it makes the competitions job that much easier.
(Don’t worry Raider fans – we now have a rookie head coach who is trying to get rid of the few talented players that we have)
“The primary attack that comes from Apple is, hey, at the end of the day, we have the coolest hardware. When you see the hardware, the PC design that is am come out this Christmas with Windows 7, I think that conventional wisdom can begin to really change. “
First, Microsoft doesn’t make hardware. Second, while I love the Mac hardware, it is the quality of the Mac —software— that sells the machines.
This idiot runs a software company and doesn’t get this?
A little off topic;
Just to speak about how Mac is better… I was in the Apple Store and started playing with a Mac that had a usb piano keyboard hooked up, with Garage Band.
I am a musician, but I’ve never used garage band.
I recorded a perfect cover of “Right Now” by Akon in 20 minutes, including vocals. The Apple salespeople walked me through tempo changing, adding instruments, and recording. I one-take sang into the built in mic and then flipped on GarageBand’s pitch correction.
I’ve never recorded such a professional sounding piece of music soooo fast in my life.
Also makes you wonder how much talent our pop stars really have…..
I have news for you MAC turds. Ballmer knows all about amazing innovation. I’ll remind you real world computer challenged nincompoops of a certain 4-letter MP3 player that’s taking the world by storm, and it ain’t the dumpy I-Pod. Zune oozes amazing hardware design and innovation, and It’s only a taste of the awesome things Microsoft and their hardware partners will offer at Christmastime. Scared? You dorks should be.
Your potential. Our passion.™
Ballmer’s comments are eerily reminiscent of those uttered by virtually every CEO of General Motors over the last 20 years. Every year, as GMs market share continued to erode, their mantra always, “Wait ‘til next year, when the new models come out. Sure the current crop isn’t meeting sales expectations, but the NEXT batch, those are really going to be the game-changers.” They shamelessly shoveled that drivel year after year, as they continued churning out largely forgettable products and their market share plummeted. Ballmer would fit right in with that pack.
I used to think that if the government made cars, they’d be GM. And if GM made software, they’d be Microsoft. Never thought I’d actually see it happen though.
@iPhoner: a beautiful story, thanks for sharing.
Ballmer still has a a job because the rest of Redmond is just as deranged and out of touch as he is.
Apple isn’t about the hardware, it’s about the EXPERIENCE. The user experience is a combination of hardware and software. Ballmer just counts units sold, he doesn’t get it.
I think I’ve lost my touch 🙁
Word to the wise: being a Mac turd=being a Micro$oft turd; but Macs are cooler.
Ballmer’s scared because the last 2 quarters, MS has ONLY made $3B; while the much smaller Apple, or so he thought, has made $2B each of the last 2 quarters. With such a tiny sliver of the computer market, Apple has really closed the gap in profits, and Ballmer can no longer ignore them.
“…the PC design that is am come out this Christmas with Windows 7, I think that conventional wisdom can begin to really change.”
“Yes (Steve,) there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.”*
But unfortunately for you, he works for Apple.
And HE, has been a very good boy.
*http://www.newseum.org/yesvirginia/
Welcome back Zune Tang! Your expertly crafted sarcasm and wit is a sight to behold and worth a million laughs! Keep it coming!
“…real world computer challenged nincompoops”- bwaha!
I want Microsoft to be smaller and less draconian, less anti-competitve.
I don’t want it to die.
Steve Ballmer is on the way to totally bury MSFT for good.
I feel sad.
Congrats to iPhoner …. your story is told thousands of times across America as folks take the plunge after being totally frustrated with Windows and Microsoft. I convinced my son-in-law to switch about 3 years ago and he told me again last week how absolutely happy he is that he made the switch. He also went for an iPod and iPhone recently. Now … that’s the power of a great brand ! There truly is a difference.
In other words, Ballmer said (breathlessly),
“Don’t Switch to Apple yet! Our next operating system is really going to WOW you! But the really great thing is the hardware that’s coming out at Christmas time. Oooooo, you won’t want to be a disappointed Mac-dork then! Think of how silly you’ll feel, sitting there with an over-priced piece of hardware, just because you want to have a cool logo, when the Windows computers start coming out with, with, with … flames painted on the side! And stripes! I’m talkin’ totally awesome racing stripes, like, like, um, a super speedy fast race car!! Yeah, and, and .. uh, really neat, uh, really neat shapes! Yeah, the new Windows hardware will have colours, and shapes, that, … uh, … that will be really cool!”
I recently needed a DSL filter and dropped into a nearby Office Depot. Out of curiosity I took a stroll down their laptop aisle. I was amazed and appalled at the garish, clunky, crap on display. My all aluminum MacBook is a Formula One car next to these 1987 Buicks. Yes, they had better specs on paper, but then my MacBook doesn’t use half its CPU capacity running anti-virus software, and the slightly smaller hard drive isn’t filled with a bloated OS and non-removable crapware. You really do get what you pay for.
Three pages of comments and not one good political one. All touting how MS’s marketing is built on ripping off good design and f’ing it up. Then they lie about it with propoganga and not on play with, but rely on the ignorance of their coustomer base. And Apple is so great all you have to do is expand you mind, try it out, and you will quickly see how truly great they are.
All of which I agree with. But let’s substitute MS with Liberal, and Apple with Conservative and I belive the same arguments can be made. So anyway, just wanted to toss in some politics, have a good day . . . er, night.
“Don’t hide it.”
don’t hide it? ballsac, come on. i doubt anyone is trying to hide their Mac from you.
i wish my switcher story was as cool (or involved as much money) as the one iPhoner told, but it doesn’t. however, i can tell you that it ends exactly the same. i’m never going back, ever.
Apple only targets a small percentage of the market… It will never “take over” the desktop market. Regardless of how much people hate Windows, they hate spending money and will never put any kind of value into a computer purchase. These are the people that own a computer because everyone else does and there’s no reason to spend any real money on one. Unfortunately by doing so, they never get to experience what it is like to actually enjoy using a computer.
Remember it would be hard to fire Ballmer. He’s already a billionaire and a huge stockholder (2nd biggest maybe)? Huge in other ways as well.
“Don’t hide it.”
It’s funny how the audience was trying to go easy on Balmer by hiding their Macs… So that he doesn’t feel threatened, offended, small…
The thing that I’m amazed by is that, standing in a room full of financial analysts, he said out loud that his company’s strategy is to screw people – that’s the bit about the “prices head north”. He’s saying that “our clientele are too dumb to understand that we’re selling them cheap entry-level software that won’t get the job done, but once they’re hooked, we’ll take them for all they’re worth.”
Had I been an analyst at that meeting, I would have posted an immediate SHORT THIS STOCK notification to all and sundry. Any company whose strategy is to grow profits by holding its customers hostage is long-term doomed.
Zune Tang,
“http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2009/01/27/zune-sales-down-54-percent-will-microsoft-fight-to-save-its-digital-music-player/”
Zune sales down 54%, and they weren’t good beforehand. You’re delusional. And you even follow ====Rob Enderle==== on twitter. That’s really sad…
Steve Ballmer demonstrates how top executives can be PR people’s worst nightmare. I’ve been through media training and I can just hear them telling Steve, “it would be more effective to say it this way….” And he’s thinking, I run the company, I know how to do this. Really, Steve? You look like a slob and an idiot every time you make an appearance. Even Gates had a geeky charm, much better speaker.
The Microsoft adverts put the emphasis on cheapness and try to dismiss Apple computers as too expensive.
But Ballmer’s master plan is to hint at higher quality PCs ( presumably at higher prices ) and to charge more for the OS too. Meanwhile Apple’s laptops keep coming down in price.
There seems to be a flaw in this strategy.
“So it is possible to get great hardware innovation, even when hardware and software comes from separate companies.”
Really? So where is it??
“A lot of us switchers were morons…”
Mostly you
I’m a little late to this party, but here’s my friend’s non-switcher story and why Ballmer doesn’t reach him even though he’s a Microsoft fan.
My buddy rolls his own computer and is always bragging about how little he paid for it despite the fact that it’s a gaming machine, so the graphics card he updates costs hundreds of dollars, then add the high-end sound card, the surround speaker system, and, well, you get the point – it’s not that inexpensive a machine.
And he runs Windows XP. He has this souped-up, high-octane machine running an almost-nine-year-old OS. He’s not buying Ballmer’s lines about how great 7 will be, because he’s afraid it won’t mesh with his system’s drivers. And he’s not interested in hardware innovation, because he’s a do-it-yourselfer. He’s stuck. Microsoft has buried him and his ilk entirely.
By the way, his machine still doesn’t function well despite all the high-tech. His microphone rarely works when we play online together, he can’t get ports to open sometimes for Teamspeak, and of course he has to turn off his anti-virus to play or it fires up at midnight and he has to stop playing while he shuts it down. Meanwhile, my Mac-using friend and I never have any issues at all when we all play online. Now my hope is that with Apple’s ascendance, more developers will port games to Mac OS. No way am I putting Windows on my Mac.
We know for a fact that there is no new hardware coming out from PC manufacturers this Christmas, because the announcements weren’t made the requisite 2 years in advance. Jesus, how far ahead was the Big Ass Table announced? Can you buy that commercially yet?